2015 Subaru Legacy 2.5i

All-wheel drive, Cheetos to spare.

Largely on the strength of its ute-y wagons and wagony utes, Subaru recently posted U.S. sales numbers that put the company ahead of the Volkswagen brand. Now the Japanese firm is hoping that its new Legacy finally will make real inroads into the family-sedan segment, just as IHS Automotive reports that the SUV/crossover body style has finally overtaken the stolid saloon. As ever, Subaru sells on the unique quirks of its vehicles, just as the Swedes did until people stopped buying Swedish cars and started buying, well, Subarus. But cognizant that all-wheel drive and horizontally opposed engines will only get it so far, Subaru has upped the comfort and refinement of the latest Legacy.

The only other automobiles in the mid-size sedan segment that offer AWD are Ford’s Fusion and Chrysler’s 200—and exclusively on uplevel trims. Just to get in the door, you’re looking at spending $33,425 with Ford and $29,690 with Chrysler. If four driven wheels are number one on your list of family-sedan must-haves, the scrappy contender from Fuji Heavy Industries starts at $22,490; the savings versus the Ford are enough to buy nearly 2000 pounds of Cheetos in those Kum & Go special 99-cent bags. That’s a lot of trips to Kum & Go.

We sampled a 2.5i Premium, the middle tier on the four-cylinder Legacy ladder. It arrived decently, with a leather-wrapped steering wheel, 17-inch aluminum rolling stock, a power driver’s seat, and a seven-inch touch screen. Our test car also featured PZEV emissions and an optional package that bundles a sunroof, navigation, several driver-assistance gadgets, and Subaru’s EyeSight collision-avoidance tech, for a fully loaded price of $27,480.

Continuously Variable, Always

The base 2.5-liter horizontally opposed four is a ready ally. Or it would be if it weren’t given to moaning and lowing courtesy of the CVT to which it’s attached. The powertrain fares better with the transmission in manual mode, but the CVT still isn’t as satisfying to shift for yourself as good dual-clutch or torque-converter automatics. Or nearly as joyful as a manual, a pleasure largely banished from this pedestrian automotive segment. You can find cars in the class that offer a clutch pedal, or those that have AWD, but you can’t have both. Yes, we hem and haw over this at lunch while we tepidly dip into a shared bag of slightly stale Cheetos. Perhaps the forthcoming 2.5i Sport model will offer a stick, but we’re not counting on it.

Due to the mass increase endemic to AWD systems, the Legacy weighs in at 3480 pounds. But that’s still less than the Chevrolet Malibu and the new Hyundai Sonata. The number puts the Legacy right on par with the 1.5-liter EcoBoost Fusion, but it’s still heftier than every other naturally aspirated four-cylinder family sedan. However, the Subaru drives lighter than many of them. It’s as if you’re floating in a thing that’s somehow firmly suspended within a stiff thing, a disconnect engendered by a cushy, cushy seat and a very direct yet somewhat isolated chassis.

Keeping the Piece

Most family sedans these days feel of a piece. The Toyota Camry’s a normcore piece. The VW Passat, recently revitalized by the 1.8-liter turbo engine and additional refinement, is suddenly once again a very German piece. The Malibu feels like an already-outdated piece. (Say what you will about General Motors, but at least it’s an ethos.) The Subaru Legacy, however, is two pieces at once. Despite its bigness and softness, its underpinnings don’t feel appreciably far removed from those of Subie’s own WRX, while the interior experience brings to mind the Lincoln Town Car.

For the last couple of decades of its existence, the big Lincoln’s interior wasn’t as fancy as you’d hoped it would be, but there was no denying the man-sized, sloppy-joe comfort. And the Subaru, with its fine visibility and wide, plush chairs, delivers a similar vibe. If the dash plastics seem a mite cheap, well, hey, remember that this cabin is a big step forward over the last-gen car’s and that you get a boxer engine and all-wheel drive at a starting price of just $22,490. The buzzards over at Porsche would charge you $92,025 for their thriftiest incarnation of that configuration.

Easyscrabble

Although the Legacy wasn’t as satisfying on our jaunt through the Sierra Nevada foothills as 911s have been, it did reveal some charms. The Subie hauled merrily up gravel roads, never scrabbling for purchase. It simply found a spot to power down and got on with the business of doing so. On pavement, the car is prone to moderate understeer, but it still will hustle its way through a corner if you trust it to do its thing. The standard brake-based torque vectoring helps here. A set of grippier tires would do this car a very solid service, however.

We detected no brake fade during our instrumented testing, and the 173-foot 70-mph-to-0 stopping distance is toward the better end of the class. We did, however, get a snootful of serious hot-pad stank after a relatively short country-road blast. Real-world mileage turned out to be a pleasant surprise. The EPA rates the Legacy 2.5i at 26 mpg city/36 highway; even at the mercy of our tungsten clogs, the Subaru returned a respectable 28 mpg.

Now back to that nebulous thing inside of a thing concept. Piloting the Legacy is almost like driving a simulated car. Almost. It’s not disconnected enough to feel robotic, just enough to seem like you’re experiencing a county-fair ride from an easy chair in a different kitchen. A kitchen where people make Manwiches with rice, nori, and USDA institutional-grade beef. Maybe they do that in Indiana, where Subaru builds the Legacy. Maybe you could pick one up at Kum & Go.

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*AccuPayment estimates payments under various scenarios for budgeting and informational purposes only. AccuPayment does not state credit or lease terms that are available from a creditor or lessor, and AccuPayment is not an offer or promotion of a credit or lease transaction.